


Dematerialization of Money

by orphan_account



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 11:48:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20488403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: This is an airport thriller about missing PiperCoins and falling in loveDisclaimer: the author knows very little about hacking, cryptocurrency or American geography. But would James Patterson let that stop him? I don't think so





	1. Chapter 1

The dark descended on the Pied Piper offices, and the solitary man in the space huffed. Gilfoyle stood up from his chair and waved his arms, and the lights switched on again.

“Fuckin bullshit lights,” he muttered and sighed. He took a sip from his coffee, long cold, and stared impassively at his screen. It was almost three in the morning, and the work he had started covertly a little earlier in the day was about to reach its conclusion.

“Here goes nothing,” he muttered, and entered a command.

ARE YOU SURE? the program asked.

“You bet your ass,” Gilfoyle answered, dexterously hitting the Y key and the enter key in a fluid movement. Numbers and signs flashed across the screen in the terminal window and Gilfoyle watched the flurry of movement with a sense of awe. He allowed himself a little smirk.

Gilfoyle estimated it would take them several hours to figure out what had happened, and by that time, he would be gone. He stood up, looked around. He wasn’t a sentimental man. He didn’t want to take a moment. He didn’t want to reflect on the last five years of his life, or the chain of events that had led him to this moment. He would make a clean break and leave em guessing. No goodbyes.

“Shit,” he muttered, picked up his stuffed Baphomet toy, and dropped it in Dinesh’s chair before leaving the office.

* * *

Dinesh barged into Richard’s office with an unceremonious “hey”. Richard, engrossed in his work, jumped in his chair then looked up, annoyed.

“I really wish you’d, like, knock, or e-mail, or something.”

“Okay _boss_,” Dinesh said, pronouncing it to rhyme with “asshole”. “I’ll remember that next time _boss_. In the meantime, do you know where the fuck Gilfoyle is?”

Richard looked at the time. It was nearly two, which was late even by Gilfoyle’s standards. “No,” Richard sighed. “I guess he’ll show up when he feels like it. Why, is Bitcoin being volatile?” Richard was sure Gilfoyle had removed the Napalm Death notification now people had stopped complaining about it, but maybe he’d found some other annying fucking noise to make this time on earth closer to hell.

“Bitcoin is always volatile,” Dinesh said. “right now, I’m more worried about PiperCoin.”

“What?”

“Check the account.” Dinesh strode back behind Richard’s desk and watched over his shoulder as he opened the program.

“Huh,” Richard said. “that’s… weird.“ He clicked around, looking at the account history. "So Gilfoyle moved all the deposits into a cold wallet?”

“Looks like it.”

“Ummmm. Where is the wallet located? God, not on a fucking laptop?”

“Don’t know.”

Dinesh noticed Richard’s neck started budding visibly with sweat, staining his checkered button down shirt.

“Could uhh could this just be like a security… or a test… like uhh you have clearance, can’t you…?”

“Whatever he did, I’m locked out. Why he did it, I have no idea. However, I’m not the systems architect or ICO expert. I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for Gilfoyle moving 37 million dollars worth of PiperCoin to an unknown location without telling the CEO about it and then missing work.”

“Have uh have uhhh uh uh have you uh”

Richard’s stuttering triggered memories of the modem dial up noise for Dinesh. He closed his eyes and shuddered.

“Yes I’ve called. I’ve also texted, hit him up on facebook and instagram, and tried facetiming him. I did briefly consider opening a mastodon account so I could send him a ‘toot’ but…” Dinesh paused for dramatic effect. “even I have limits.”

Richard audibly, echoingly, gulped.

“Are you going to be sick?” Dinesh asked. Richard looked up with large pale eyes, nodded slowly, and sank under his desk to throw up in his bin.

*

Jared was worried. It was midnight and almost everyone were still at work, fuelled by the vegetarian pizza he had thought to order and depleting the Red Bull supply. Richard looked manic, and hadn’t, as far as Jared knew, had anything at all to eat. As the technicalities of what had happened rather escaped Jared he had volunteered to go look for Gilfoyle, so he had gone to the address registered in the personell files (which Gilfoyle had made classified but had had to concede that Richard would have access to), then went to the hacker house, and was about to go to Gilfoyle’s favourite hangouts when he realised he didn’t really know any of them. He called Tara, who didn’t know where he was but promised to message him if she heard anything. Then he tried calling the number on the website of the SF chapter of the Satanic Temple, and spoke to a very friendly sounding man called Mark who also promised to keep an eye out and invited Jared along to their next mass. So there wasn’t much to it except to return to the office. He’d already sent Holden home (really, when was the boy not just in the way? Hiring him had really been a mistake) so he figured he wasn’t overstepping his boundaries by making Richard a sandwich. He glanced over at Richard, typing furiously in his office. He looked green and pale and not in the mood for a more adventurous sandwich, so he rustled up a comforting PBJ and gently knocked at his door, plate in hand.

Richard looked up, nodded when he saw Jared.

“Any news Captain?”

“Don’t. Uh. I’m. Uh. No. Nothing. Fuck.”

“I made you a sandwich.”

“Thanks. I’m not hungry.”

“Please, Richard,” Jared said. “you’ll be of no use to anybody if you starve yourself into exhaustion. What if you faint again?”

Richard looked up with terror in his eyes, apparently considering the threat of the possibility. He nodded and accepted the plate, started eating without enthusiasm. “Good. Thanks.”

“Richard. Do you think, maybe, we should call the police?”

Richard took a long, shuddering breath. “Oh, God. Oh, fuck. Do you know what will happen if we call the cops?”

“Well, hopefully they will help us locate Gilfoyle?”

“Listen, Jared,” Richard said, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “he transferred 37 million dollars worth of people’s investments and savings into a cold wallet we don’t know where the fuck is and we don’t have the password to. It looks like he fucking stole that money. And it’s not… hedge fund or investor money, this is real money that matters to people. This? The company? Will be a crime scene. And he’s not here. I am. You know who the people who own that money will come collecting to?”

Richard started sweating. Jared fought down the urge to mop his brow with a tissue, folded his hands tightly. Not for the first time, he wished he could take Richard’s pain, endure it for him. But he was working on that in therapy. The codependency, the romantic fantasies. He was Richard’s COO, not Richard’s boyfriend. There was a time he’d hoped that maybe something might happen between them, but that had long passed. He needed to be helpful to the company, that was what he was here for.

“We could file a missing persons report.”

“Ha,” Richard said. “he’s a 38 year old single satanist Canadian. The cops won’t start a manhunt unless they have a reason. They probably won’t even bother putting his photo up on their Twitter account and write ‘anybody seen this asshole around?’.”

“Well,” Jared said, reasonably. “if - and this is a big IF - he’s on the run, the longer we wait the more of a headstart he’ll have.”

Richard stared at Jared. “I know that. I fucking know. I just, I just…”

Priyanka knocked and entered Richard’s office. “Richard, can you come take a look at this?”

Richard smiled, face lighting up with hope, shot Jared a see?-look and scrambled up from his desk. He and Jared walked out into the main office space, where the engineers were huddled around Lauren and her monitor. The monitor showed a loop of a fat guy at a hot dog eating contest, cramming them down, while a robotic voice said a sentence over and over in gibberish.

“What? What the fuck is this?”

“I thought I’d managed to trace back everything he did and reverse it, then this happened,” Lauren said.

“What, uh, what, uh, what–”

“It’s Urdu,” Dinesh said, tersely. “it just goes, ‘eat my dick, motherfuckers’.”

There was a long pause, the silence only studded with the looping Urdu profanities.

“Jared,” Richard finally said in a small voice. “can you please contact the authorities?”


	2. Chapter 2

Richard woke up with a sense of terrible, terrible unease. His heart hammered in his chest and he was dripping with sweat. He wasn’t sure where he was, but the bed was soft and warm, and he could swear he smelt sweet lemon. He looked around and recognised Jared’s bedroom. Why was he in Jared’s bedroom? Then his memory exploded with terrible information of that dreadful day and night before, and, vaguely, how Jared had hustled him into his car and taken him home at around four in the morning. He looked over at Jared’s digital clock, which cheerfully proclaimed it to be close to noon.

He stumbled out into the living room, in his worn T-shirt and boxers. Jared was sitting on the sofa, laptop open in front of him, speaking softly into his phone. He whipped round when Richard opened the door, smiling warmly and raising his free hand in greeting.

“Well, he’s awake, I’ll inform him and yes, of course we’ll come down to the station. Thank you.”

“What. Uh. God, it’s so late. Why didn’t you wake me up. What. Has something?”

“There has been a rather upsetting development,” Jared said, holding his hands out placatingly, frowning. “You might want to take a seat.”

“What?” Richard said, sitting down. “Just uh, just.”

“It’s about Gilfoyle.”

“They found him?”

“They might have.”

*

Richard heaved his guts out in the metallic bin. Jared had scanned the room for bins the moment they stepped in, and had descreetly picked one up and carried it with him. He was proud of Richard, he’d managed to look at the charred body for upwards of five seconds before he started gagging, giving Jared ample time to put the bin down in front of him.

Viewing the body was admittedly upsetting. Jared had a fairly high tolerance for gore but he felt his stomach churn. The cadaver was mostly burnt but still had patches of pale, intact skin which made it undeniably human and gave it a personhood which was difficult to consider. The face was unidentifiable and the head was a bald sore. It had been rescued from a burning rented car the night before and as Jared had been informed, a note found in mr Gilfoyle’s apartment and other information led them to believe he was the driver, although they wouldn’t tell him what exactly had been in the note or what the other information was.

“I don’t really understand why you called us down here,” Jared said, trying to hide his annoyance. “there isn’t much left to identify.” He’d leant down to where Richard was crouched on all fours, rubbing circles into his back, tried not thinking about the smell in the room. 

“I understand,” the officer said. “the victim is, however, Bertram Gilfoyle’s race, height and as far as we can tell, approximate weight. Is there anything at all you can identify from the remains?”

“He had a tattoo,” Jared said. “maybe more, but one that I’m aware of. On his right arm. It’s an upside down cross.”

The coroner inspected the body’s arm. “Difficult to tell, but this might be a tattoo. I’ll take a closer look.”

“Thank you, mister Dunn.”

“Can we leave?”

“Yes. We’re going to call him in for questioning a little later, and yourself too mr Dunn, but we’re swamped right now,“ the officer said pensively, frowning at Richard. "is he alright?”

Richard whimpered softly, dry-heaving.

“He’ll be fine,” Jared said.

* * *

The next months were, as far as Richard was concerned, a living nightmare. After the FBI had ransacked the hacker hostel an incensed Jian Yang had evicted him for good. When he found he couldn’t go outside without being papped by tech bros with pixel phones he stopped shaving (and, for the most part, going outside). When the lawsuits against Pied Piper got into the quadruple figures he stopped reading emails. He wasn’t entirely sure what he’d done without Jared, who had relinquished his bedroom to Richard, got them legal councel (Pete Monahan’s latest escapade had made sure he had a lot of obligatory pro bono work to do), kept in touch with the ongoing investigation AND made Richard a variety of soothing teas. Thinking back on that time of chaos Jared seemed to Richard to be the eye of the storm, the one point of calm and control in a monstrous clusterfuck. He even managed to get himself a new job pretty quickly so he was handling everything while settling into his new role at Parzec. Richard knew 100% for a fact he had done nothing to deserve that kind of loyalty, which, on the occasions he thought about it only served to make him feel worse. So when Jared insisted he come to the memorial service he had arranged for Gilfoyle he didn’t argue too much, even though he sat through the stupid, satanist service with all those stupid, edgelord engineer goths just barely containing the impulse to wreck the place in a rage-out. He shuddered heavily, picturing himself kicking over the big picture of Gilfoyle and pissing on the (black, so obvious) candles, and Jared misread it and placed a large hand over his, whispered “it’s okay.”

Dinesh didn’t come to the service. He had dealt with the situation by burning as many bridges as possible, blocking Richard and Jared’s numbers and talking to any media outlet who would have him about what a bad egg Gilfoyle had been and how he always thought pivoting to currency was a terrible, terrible idea. One day Richard could hear his voice cutting through the walls of Jared’s apartment and flung open the bedroom door, mouth agape, but Dinesh was just on the TV, on Bloomberg, discussing the Pied Piper scandal alongside a panel of crypto experts. Jared turned around.

“Is this upsetting to you Richard? Should I turn it off?”

“No, no, it’s.” Richard sat down on the sofa next to Jared, staring at the screen. Dinesh was wearing a salmon shirt and a lot of hairgel. Richard was wearing a too-big Hooli T-shirt with pitstains and his curly hair was greasy and matted.

“Mr Chugtai, as a programmer and co-founder, what did you think of the decision for Pied Piper to get involved in cryptocurrency?”

“Hasn’t he answered this question a hundred times already?” Richard said with that mirthless laugh of his which signalled he was getting worked up.

“Oh I thought it was a terrible idea, just terrible,” Dinesh said, employing that vocal fry and slow drawl he thought made him sound sophisticated and urbane. “I didn’t understand. None of us did. What you have to understand about Richard Hendricks is that he is a great coder, a very good coder, but he was never a very good CEO.”

“I understand he was stripped of the title on more than one occasion,” the host intervened. "indeed, you yourself held the position for a short time?”

“Yes, but we don’t need to talk about that,” Dinesh said, momentarily lapsing into his normal voice. “the important thing is I did believe in the compression product we were building and thought, perhaps naively, that Richard would grow into the role. But like I was saying, he was a very weak leader, easily swayed, and after Gilfoyle got him alone and got in his head suddenly he was all about cryptocurrency.”

“Hahaha,” Richard said, tersely.

“That is the late mr Bertram Gilfoyle, who moved 37 million dollars worth of PiperCoin into an undisclosed location, before committing suicide.”

“Yeah, that guy,” Dinesh agreed. “he was awful. And he was a white supremacist as well, that should be on the record.”

“Come on…” Richard said.

“I’m turning it off,” Jared said.

“No, don’t.”

“Can you tell us what happened when you all discovered what had happened?”

“Well, it was actually me, who discovered it. I discovered all the funds were moved, and I eventually found a very unpleasant message he had left for me, specifically, as he knew I was the only programmer with the company who was a match for his skill.”

“He didn’t even get to the message, Lauren did,” Richard said. “and okay, it was Urdu or whatever, but it wasn’t like, personalised. He didn’t tell Dinesh to suck his dick, he told all of us to suck his dick. It was a mass invite.”

Jared sighed and turned the TV off.

“Hey, I was watching.”

“Richard, do you remember I told you mr Monahan is coming by today? He said he had something very important to discuss about the investigation. Do you think you could maybe, clean up a little before he gets here?”

“What?”

“I like your beard Richard, but it’s terribly unkempt. I could help you if you like.”

“No, no, that’s okay.”

“Richard, please,“ Jared said with sad begging eyes and Richard felt like hammered shit.

"Maybe you could talk to him alone,” he said, hating himself for it. “I can just stay in the room.”

“Oh, Richard,” Jared said unhappily and it was too much to stand.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Richard muttered, and ten minutes later he was sitting on a kitchen chair with a towel around his neck while Jared sat facing him, squinting cross-eyed as he trimmed Richard’s beard with small, sharp scissors.


	3. Chapter 3

The doorbell rang and Jared got up to buzz Pete Monahan in the front door. Richard emerged from the bathroom in a clean button down shirt and jeans, beard now short cropped and hair wet from his shower. Jared smiled fondly at him.

“You look wonderful.”

Richard nodded, tight-lipped. There was a knock and Monahan came in, looking sharp in a pinstripe suit with a laptop bag over his shoulder.

“Jared. Richard.”

“Hi,” Jared said. “thanks for meeting us here.”

“It was on my way anyway. I have community service down the street in forty minutes.” He shot Richard a pitying look and Richard’s stomach knotted realising Jared had probably arranged this especially so he wouldn’t have to leave the house. He wanted to disappear back into the bedroom.

“Gentlemen, we have a lot to go through, so we might as well get started,” Monahan said, striding over to Jared’s kitchen and pulling out his laptop and a folder full of papers, sitting down a the kitchen table. Jared and Richard followed and sat down. “first of all, I’ve heard the investigation has taken an unfortunate turn.”

“More good news,” Richard said. “huhu.”

“Richard. This is serious. According to my sources, some of the operations he performed could only have been done with your password.”

“What, for the PiperCoin app? He had my password.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. “Well, so far the assumption has been he hacked you. Only recently has that been questioned.”

Richard slumped over. “Honestly I couldn’t give a shit about crypto. He told me we should have a double user security measure and he didn’t want to do it with Dinesh so I told him just to make me an account and take my password and do it himself. I couldn’t be bothered with— I wanted to code, keep things running smooth, not deal with money shit.”

“This is true,” Jared said. “I was there for the meeting.”

Monahan looked at him. “Were you there for the whole meeting?”

“No,” Jared said, squirming. “I said it was a bad idea and took my leave.” He looked at Richard. “I thought you listened to me.”

Richard smiled weirdly. “I just– I just–”

“Mr Chugtai and miss Hall, do they know?”

“No.”

“Mr Bachmann?”

“What, Erlich?” Richard asked, frowning. “Erlich doesn’t know about any of this. He’s in Tibet or something. Has been since before PiperCoin.”

“I won’t lie to you gentlemen, if this were to come up in court, it could look very compromising. At best, it could render Richard wholly responsible for Gilfoyle’s actions, from a legal point of view.”

“And… at worst?” Richard asked. “Because that kind of sounds like a worst.”

“Well, at worst the attorney could argue you’re the architect behind the whole thing.”

“What? Architect?”

“You said the police were investigating new directions,” Jared said. “you don’t mean they want to implicate Richard in Gilfoyle’s death?”

“WHAT?” Richard said.

“In any case, I don’t think you should volunteer the information that he had your password. The assumption you’ve been hacked is better for us, and seeing as how he was the systems architect and security expert it’s also more credible than the CEO of a multi million dollar company volunteering his password because he didn’t want to deal with ‘money shit’. So only Jared knows about this?”

“Jared knows everything there is to know,” Richard said and Jared smiled a little. “I tell him everything. He’s the only one willing to listen most of the time.”

There was another pause and Pete Monahan looked from Jared, obliviously beaming at Richard, to Richard, who looked straight ahead, lips tightly shut. “I’m going to ask you a very direct question, and I’d like you to answer it honestly,” Monahan said. Richard shrugged and nodded. Jared tilted his head and focussed his gaze on Monahan.

“Are, or have ever, the two of you been romantically involved?”

“Uhnn uh” Richard spluttered, while Jared’s face went a little pink. “No,” Jared said. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Yeah uhh!!” Richard agreed. “Ridiculous!”

“I think we all know Richard’s a little out of my league,” Jared said.

Richard’s head whipped round to look at him. “What? What the fuck? I’m… No, it’s…”

“You are, however, very close friends?” Monahan pressed.

Richard’s jaw set. “Yes. Jared’s my best friend.” He felt Jared’s hand fan over his shoulder and squeeze.

“The reason I asked about any possible involvement, is that as you are probably aware, in June 2008 gay marriage became legal in the state of California. And under law a spouse cannot be made to testify against their partner.”

There was an awkward silence, then Richard made a noise like a nervous laughter, tight-lipped, snorting. “You’re suggesting we get married so he doesn’t have to testify against me?” he said.

“Gentlemen, I would never suggest something so unethical! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to make it to community service. I believe we are painting over a fresco of male genitalia in a high school toilet today. I will leave you to discuss the subject of your choosing.”

Monahan collected his papers back into his bag, gave them a nod, and hurried out the door.

“That man is insane,” Richard said. “no wonder he got debarred. Like, me giving Gilfoyle my password can’t be that much of a big deal, right?” He finally dared a look over at Jared, who was staring at him with big blue eyes, one hand moving nervously at his neck.

“I won’t testify against you Richard, in any case,” Jared assured. “Worst comes to worst, I could go into hiding in the Ozarks.”

“What? No, I… Jared, you wouldn’t want to like, get married over this?”

“I’d happily do that if it helped. I think it might make our lives a little easier, to be honest.”

“It would make my life easier maybe, yours would just become ten thousand times more complicated.”

Jared smiled and shrugged. “I don’t care. You’re my best friend, too.”

Richard groaned and buried his face in his arms, slouching over the table. He thought about every dumb and shitty detail of the last five years. Even setting aside the stupid, stupid, hopelessly naive arrangement with Gilfoyle. The exploding phones and how he’d tried to use Stanford’s servers. How easy it would be for the other lawyers to paint him as ruthless and incompetent. How Jared knew every damn thing there probably was to know about the last five years. He’d even admit to be the one buying all those users for Pied Piper, under oath. Richard could get him into trouble just by association. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck!

Richard unpeeled his face from his arms and looked up at Jared who was staring at him with that concerned look of his. He smiled, a wide, tired smile. “Hey, Jared.”

“Yes, Richard?”

“Will you marry me?”

Jared’s hand grasped at his collar. “Yes Richard,” he said, but it came out just a whisper, so he assumed the neutral, professional smile he’d perfected during his Hooli days. “Yes Richard,” he said again, firmly. “let’s do this.”


	4. Chapter 4

They stayed up all night, like the first day they met, working on Pied Piper’s business plan. They booked a city hall appointment three days hence, decided to invite Jared’s friend Gloria and Bighead as witnesses, drafted social media updates (Richard realised this would involve a call from his mother and had to take a puke break), agreed Richard would formally change his address to Jared’s condo, and worked out a basic timeline of their “relationship” (about a year of dating on the down low on Richard’s request, current circumstances scared them enough to take the plunge, Jared proposed). They also decided they’d stick with their story even with Monica (who’d probably see right through them) or Dinesh (who wasn’t speaking to them anyway). Jared also did some research on divorce procedures, which looked fairly straightforward.

“Says here they can be expensive,” Richard said.

“Lawyer’s fees,” Jared said. “for dividing property, negotiating custody of children or pets. We don’t need that.”

“Should we get a pre nup?”

Jared frowned. “So I wouldn’t be entitled to half your share of Pied Piper? I would never claim such a thing, Richard. But if it makes you rest easier, then of course. I don’t mind. I’ll put it on the list!”

“Pied… Pied Piper isn’t worth dog shit, Jared. It’s a liability if anything. You’re the only one with assets. The condo. Um… your spoon collection.”

Jared smiled brightly. “Oh, I don’t think you’ll come for my spoons, Richard.”

* * *

Jared was at work and Richard had paced the condo for about fifteen minutes. Finally, he opened his contacts, took a deep breath and called Bighead.

_“Hey Richard!”_

“Hey Bighead. Um. How, how is it going?”

_“Good,”_ Bighead said. _“my dad is making me take a lot of meetings with my lawyer. But I get the feeling he’s started to avoid me?”_

“Who, your lawyer?”

_“He’s mad because I won’t sue you, but I was like, Richard doesn’t have any money, what’s the point? He’s staying in Jared’s bedroom rent free, what am I going to take, his Switch?”_

“Right.”

_“Like, I have my own Switch. Have you played Hollow Knight yet? It’s pretty good.”_

“Bighead, the reason I’m calling is I have uh, I have a request and uh.” 

_“Shoot.”_

“So uh. Me. And uh. Jared.”

_“Yeah?”_

“Well uhhh well uhh we’re ah, we’re getting married.”

There was a silence. _“You’re what?”_

“We’re like uh, we’re together. And we decided to get married.”

_“Oh. Congratulations.”_

“Um. Thanks. Um. And I wondered if. You. Would like to be. Best man and witness.”

_“Yeah, of course man. When is it?”_

“Uhh well uh it’s friday, city hall, we have a slot at two o clock.”

_“Cool. Wait. Um, wait a minute, Richard.”_

“…yeah?”

_“Does this mean I have to arrange a bachelor party? Can we like not do Alcatraz?”_

Richard laughed. “No. I don’t want a party. I hate parties. Just show up on friday and bring some ID so you can act as witness.”

_“Can do. Congrats again, Richard. Uh, Richard, just one more thing.”_

“Yeah?”

_“Was I like, supposed to know you guys were together?”_

“Umm no, Bighead, no. We haven’t told anyone.”

_“Okay. Phew.”_

* * *

Richard was sitting on the steps of the city hall, engrossed in his phone. Jared smiled and walked up, sat down one step down from him.

“Oh hey, there you are,” Richard said. “uh, you look, uh, nice.”

“Thank you Richard! So do you!” Richard’s smile froze a little, but he really did look handsome. Jared had taken the morning to himself, told Richard to meet him at city hall, and treated himself to a manicure and a haircut. Jared was pleased to see the suit he’d left Richard fit wonderfully, and he’d showered and shaved (he had a little band-aid on his chin which made Jared smile), and he looked better than he had since before this whole mess started.

“Should we uhhh, should we uh,” he pointed with his thumb, over his shoulder, towards the entrance.

“Maybe we should just wait for Bighead and Gloria, and we can all go in together.” Jared checked the time. “There’s nearly twenty minutes until our slot.”

“Oh okay. Uh. I’ll just, uh, I need to finish this email.”

He went back to furiously typing with a worry frown between his eyebrows and Jared looked up at him. Sitting one step down meant he could. It was nice. The architecture of Richard’s face really was exquisite. He dreamily imagined Richard smirking confidently and whisper “I’m so glad we’re doing this” before grabbing Jared’s face and tilting it back back for a real Hollywood kiss, so low he’d have to grab Richard’s shoulders for support.

“Uh, do I like, have something on my face?”

Jared blushed as he realised he’d been staring. He put one hand in his pocket and rubbed the paper clip he had in there between two fingers. His therapist had suggested it might help touching a physical object to ground him when he started daydreaming. “Oh, just, is that a bandaid?”

“Cut myself shaving,” Richard said a little glumly.

“Oh, okay.”

“You’re like, you’re sure about this Jared? It’s not too late to back out.”

“Of course I’m sure, Richard,” Jared said. “do you have second thoughts?”

“No,” he said firmly, and something inside Jared’s chest fluttered. “I just thought, like, I’d give you an out. I won’t hold it against you. I’d understand it way more than actually going through with this.”

“We’re in this together,” Jared said.

“Okay. But. Like. You’re the kind of person who maybe had like… expectations or whatever towards marriage? Hopes? Uh.”

“Are you trying to say I’m a romantic?” Jared smiled.

“Ha. Yeah. I guess.”

“Well, I’ll admit the circumstances aren’t ideal,” Jared said carefully. “but in some ways… it could be worse. You’re a good person. And I love you.”

Richard went a little dead-eyed, but then something wonderful happened. He audibly swallowed and then cleared his throat. “I love you too, Jared. Fuck. I really don’t deserve you.”

Jared’s mouth fell open a little. “Richard…”

“Hey guys,” Bighead said, suddenly appearing in front of them, wearing an oversized tuxedo jacket with the sleeves rolled up and holding a Big Gulp. “man this place was hard to find. I never noticed it before.“ He looked up at the huge, classical building with a mildly confused squint. "Has it been here for a long time?”

“Oh I see Gloria,” Jared said and stood up, waving to a woman in her sixties wearing a colourful kaftan and a Hollywood-style turban, employing a powerful stride. “here! Gloria!”

*

The ceremony was short and sweet, Gloria took plenty of photos on her iPhone, Bighead managed to hand Richard the rings without any mishaps, and Richard didn’t throw up, even though he felt weirdly lightheaded and almost like he was watching himself from the outside, reciting the vows, threading a ring on Jared’s long finger, Jared doing the same to him, and then the bit came, the bit he hadn’t had time to think about, and the judge said “I now declare you married, and you may seal this union with a kiss.”  
Before he had a chance to say something dumb or run away Jared leant down, gently grasped Richard’s cheek and pressed soft lips to his. Richard kissed back and then Jared backed away and he was blushing and smiling hard and Gloria and Bighead were clapping and cheering.

*

The wedding dinner was at a bland restaurant with more tourists in it than industry people. The food kind of sucked but at least nobody was ogling Richard, who found he could actually relax in there.

“Can I just ask something?” Bighead said, picking at his nacho plate.

“Uhhh, sure.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about you guys?” He looked a little hurt. “I would have supported you, man.”

Richard’s heart sank. He chewed his lip. Lying to Bighead hadn’t been fun over the phone and it wasn’t fun now. "I’m sorry.”

“Oh honey, Jared didn’t tell us anything either,” Gloria said. “of course, he’s been pining for years! I told Jared, I told him, you’re a wonderful man, anyone would be so lucky to have you, you need to tell this Richard how you feel, and if he’s not an idiot he’ll have you.” She winked at Richard. “Guess you’re not an idiot.”

“Okay,” Jared kind-of-laughed. Richard looked over and could tell he was uncomfortable, grinning nervously and staring down his LaCroix. So Richard reached over and grabbed his hand, threaded their fingers together.

“It’s okay,” he said and hoped Jared would understand that it really was. Jared looked at him wide-eyed and then Richard noticed Gloria was taking a photo on her iphone.

“Hey, uh—”

“Oh, you’ll be happy to have it later,” she said.

“I kind of figured out something was up with you two anyway,” Bighead said thoughtfully.

“What?” Richard said, thrown. “I mean… How.”

“Well you’re always sneaking off together, you always go to Jared’s place if you need somewhere even though I have, like, a ton of space, and like, it was pretty obvious Jared was into you from the start.”

“Well, uh, I was into him too, it just like, took me a while. Yeah. Coming to terms and stuff. The whole. Gay. Thing.”

“I actually was a little jealous at first,” Bighead said thoughtfully.

“Um, what now?” Richard asked.

“I dunno. We’ve been friends forever but when you showed up,” he looked at Jared. “he took your side right away.”

“Oh,” Jared said. “it really wasn’t personal, Nelson.”

“I know. It’s really okay. I hope I find someone to be in my corner one day too.”

“I’m sure you will,” Jared said brightly, touched.

“You’re a catch, honey,” Gloria said. “look at those guns of yours.”

“Um, okay,” Bighead said. “So how’s the trial coming together?” Richard’s shoulders slumped but he was grateful for the subject change and pulled his hand out of Jared’s.

“Uhhh it’s not scheduled for another month. I’m not allowed to leave the state in the meantime. We’re going through everything with our lawyer.”

“The old pervy guy?”

“Yeah, him.”

“Cool.”

*

When they got back Richard sat down on the sofa, buried his face in both hands and groaned. Jared sat down next to him. “I thought it went well. Bighead was taken in.”

“I felt like shit lying to him.”

“I understand, but it’s part of the plan,” Jared said. “I didn’t enjoy deceiving Gloria either. Speaking of, she just sent me a link to the photos she took, do you want to see?”

“Sure, okay.”

Jared got up, made a “wait” gesture and disappeared off into the kitchen, coming back with a bottle of champagne and two flutes.

“Real stuff,” he said. “Not domestic.”

“You don’t even drink,” Richard said.

“Not in at risk situations no,” Jared said, which made Richard frown.

“Uh, you never drank at the hacker house?”

“Oh, I considered you all my friends, but any group of inebriated men constitute a risk, in my experience,” Jared said cheerfully.

“Uh…”

“But if I can’t cut loose with my husband, who can i?” Jared said and clinked their glasses together.

“Uh, yeah,” Richard agreed.

They looked at the photos, which Richard remarked were really pretty good (“why do you think I invited her?”). Richard was pleased to note they looked pretty genuine, he was smiling in most of them and she’d even hit a couple of shots of them kissing which looked… Really romantic. Richard sighed and held his hand out in front of his face, looking at his ring.

“Did you look at the inscription?” Jared asked.

“Huh? You got them engraved?” Richard had really just let Jared handle most of the actual wedding stuff. He hadn’t even thought of rings before he’d seen Jared slip the case to Bighead. He felt a little bad he hadn’t even looked closely at them. So he pulled it off and squinted at it, rolling it between his fingers. It said the date, RICHARD & JARED and the infinity symbol. Richard grinned, looked up at Jared.

“What the… what the fuck? How did you know? Did I tell you?”

Jared shrugged. “You were drunk and talked about wanting to get a tattoo, and you talked about how meaningful that sign was to you.”

“Fuck,” Richard said.

“Do you like it?”

“Yeah, I, yeah. It’s uh. It’s perfect actually. Thanks, Jared.”

Jared beamed. “You’re welcome.”

“See, I knew you were a romantic.” Richard laughed nervously.

*

Jared got drunk quick and he got real drunk. When he broke his glass Richard grabbed his wrist as he went to pick up the pieces.

“I’ll do that, you’re going to bed.”

“Oh Richard, the bed is yours, I’ll just, let me, the,”

“You’re … You’re going to sleep in your own bed, just, don’t touch that, you’ll cut yourself. Sit still, drink some water.”

He thrust a water glass at Jared and got a towel to pick up the big pieces, them went over the whole area with Jared’s handheld vacuum cleaner. Whenever he glanced up Jared was looking at him fondly.

“Okay, that’s alright, let’s go to bed.”

“I’ll make up the sofabed, I really inshish,” Jared slurred.

Richard sighed. “Let’s just, let’s both go sleep on the bed, okay?”

Jared’s jaw dropped. “Yeah?”

“Yeah we’re drunk and we’re tired and we just got fucking married, let’s just go.”

“Well okay!” Jared said enthusiastically.

Richard went into the bedroom and flopped down on the bed, kicking off his clothes until he was left in his boxers, then picked up a threadbare t-shirt he liked sleeping in and pulled it on. Jared had disappeared into the tiny ensuite.

“You okay?” Richard called out after what seemed like a weird long time to be in there. The door opened. Jared had changed into white pajamas (which looked pretty new to Richard, but best not to dwell on that), and he smiled, smoothed down his shortsleeved top. He walked a little unsteadily over and into bed.

“What side do you usually sleep on? Is this okay?” Richard asked, feeling more guilty than usual over occupying Jared’s bed.

“This is fine, don’t worry Richard.”

“Okay. Goodnight.”

“Richard. Can I, can I just ask one thing. In honour of the occasion. Feel free to say no, of course!”

“Uh, what?”

“Can I have another kiss?”

“You’re really drunk huh,” Richard said, buying time. Jared didn’t answer, just looked expectantly at him, lying on his side. When was the last time Jared even asked for anything? He could do this. Richard giggled. Maybe he was a little drunk, too. He reached out a hand and cradled the back of Jared’s neck, gently, and Jared’s eyes fluttered shut. He leant in and kissed him, crookedly catching his top lip, for a few sweet seconds. He pulled away and Jared smiled at him, but Richard thought to himself, even I can do better than that, so he leant in again and it was better that time, and Jared’s lips were firm and he smelled like pine trees and it really wasn’t bad at all, and he could swear he felt Jared sort of - like shudder against him, but like in a good way? So Richard felt pretty pleased with himself when they pulled apart, grinned and hummed a little, and then Jared leant in and kissed him and okay scratch that, Richard was okay at this, but Jared was great. If he could focus he’d take notes for future reference, of the way his big hand came up to cup his face, the way he chased and retreated, and how the kiss was long, sweet and sultry. Kind of like Jared, Richard thought, and then he felt like laughing but it just came out like a kind of gasp and when his lips parted Jared swiped his tongue gently inside, teasing Richard’s, and then Richard’s hips sort of involuntarily jolted forward and he pulled at Jared’s T-shirt and brought him closer. Then Jared flipped him over on his back, and then Jared was over him and he was an unassuming guy in spite of the height but he was heavier than he looked and in this position there was just a lot of him a lot of shoulders and arms and legs that went on forever and Richard panicked, put both hands on Jared’s shoulders and pushed. Jared pulled away immediately.

"Okay, uhhhh, okay, so uh, was that okay?” Richard asked.

“Oh– yes, Richard, it’s–”

“Okay good, good, that’s good, um,” Richard said, scuttling away. “you’re welcome,” he added, nonsensically, with a weird flourish of his hand.

“Thank you,” Jared said politely, moving away, putting space between them.

“Well, um, good night.”

There was a long silence.

“Good night, Richard.”


	5. Chapter 5

Richard woke up first, bleary-eyed and dry-mouthed. He shakily got up and looked down on Jared, sleeping deeply. He noticed Jared’s hair curled and wondered what he did to make it lie down. Maybe he’d show Richard. Or maybe it was that foul pomade stuff he’d been trying to get him to use. Pass on that.

He padded out into the living space and used the main bathroom to shower and shave (now he’d made some initial effort he didn’t feel like going back to his depressed cave man ways immediately) and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked pale and sallow and thin. He thought about the way Jared had kissed him last night, like he was someone worth holding, someone worth… like… lusting over. Weirdly, he didn’t feel weird about it. In fact, it was kind of an ego boost? Like. It had legit been kind of hot? He suddenly regretted pushing Jared away. Of course, it was probably for the best. He smiled a little at his reflection.

Richard was playing around on github and drinking coffee when Jared emerged, looking about as shitty as Richard had ever seen him. He had dark circles around his eyes, a dusting of dark and patchy stubble on his face, and his hands were shaking.

“Coffee?” Richard asked.

“Oh, I don’t really drink coffee.”

“You kind of look like you could use some.”

Jared sat down opposite him and shrugged, so Richard got up and poured him a cup.

“Thanks,” Jared whispered.

“How do you feel?”

“Awful. I really shouldn’t drink. That was a mistake.”

“It’ll pass. Are you going to be sick?”

Jared looked like he considered the question, then he shook his head and sipped his cup. “Richard,” he said, finally, hoarsely. “we need to talk.”

“Okay?”

“About last night.”

“Um. You mean. The.”

“The kissing,” Jared supplied helpfully.

“Forget it.” Richard squirmed uncomfortably on his chair. He truly was fine with it, no freaking out, but that didn’t mean he wanted a morose and analystical Jared-talk about it with his therapy words and exercises.

“No, Richard, we should establish some boundaries. Both physical and emotional. We need to talk it out if we’re going to live together. You know I–”

“Like uh, it’s no big deal, right?“ Richard interjected. "We were drunk and like, okay, we uh, we made out, so fucking what, we’re married,” Richard laughed nervously. “like it’s not even the top ten craziest thing that happened this year, forget it.”

Jared looked like he was going through a lot of answers to that in his head. “If you like,” he said after a while.

“Yeah, just, like, drop it,” Richard said, relieved at the victory. “also, I’ve been thinking, I should sleep on the sofa.”

“No–”

“No, really, like, I’m your guest, and I’ve put you out enough.”

“No, Richard,” Jared shook his head. “you might have to stay for a long time, remember. I really want you to have your own space. I encourage you to decorate and change things around if you want. I want you to feel like you have a door you can close and be alone. Besides, I already ordered you a desk.”

“What?”

Jared smiled and leaned in a little. “It was going to be a surprise. It should get delivered today. I thought we’d redecorate and make you an office corner so you have your own work station.”

“Fuck. Uh. Thanks.” Richard’s jaw set. “I’m going to make it up to you one day. I’m not sure how, but I will.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Jared said.

“Your hair’s got curls,” Richard said.

“What? Oh– it gets like that, in the morning. I’ll freshen up in a bit.”

“I like them,” Richard said.

Jared’s face split in a wide, spontaneous smile, which made him look kind of lovely inspite of how sweaty and gross and hung over he was. “Yeah?”

Richard smiled and shrugged. “Yeah.”

* * *

Inviting Nelson had been a good idea, Jared decided. Things hadn’t really been strained between himself and Richard, Jared had worked through the rejection by reasoning to himself that however bad he felt Richard probably felt so much worse with the lawsuits and the upcoming court case and oh, how selfish of him to impose his stupid useless feelings on poor Richard at a time like this, and Richard acted like literally nothing had happened at all. Jared did note that he hadn’t taken off the ring. He also noted that Richard had been making an effort lately, getting out of bed at a reasonable time, eating, maintaining basic hygiene, actually dressing rather than just wearing pajamas and hoodies, being engaged and interested when they met with Pete Monahan, working on his laptop (when Jared asked he just shrugged and said “fixing other people’s mistakes”). All good news but still, he seemed kind of down. So Jared had called Nelson and asked him to come around, which he blithely agreed to, and as usual Richard seemed to perk up in the presence of his oldest friend. They were battling it out on the Switch, they’d offered Jared to join but he gently refused and set about plying them with snacks instead. Jared really wished he had the ability to make Richard relax Nelson had. Sitting on the sofa next to them he yawned and blinked.

“Go to bed if you’re tired,” Richard said.

“Oh no,” Jared said. “I’m fine.” It was one in the morning, far past his usual bedtime, but he didn’t want to evict Nelson now they were having such a good time just to claim the sofa.

“It’s, uh, it’s fine, honey,” Richard said, jerking his head towards the bedroom.

Jared couldn’t help but smile at the clumsy endearment. “Okay, baby,” he said brightly, sharing in the joke. “good night.” Richard was just so good, to offer him his bed! Okay, technically, it was Jared’s bed, but he’d fully relinquished it for Richard’s use only, so he still appreciated the gesture.

“Wait.” Removing one hand from the controller, he hoisted himself up with his free arm to Jared’s level and kissed him quick on the lips. “Goodnight.”

It felt like the air sucked out of his chest but he managed to smile benignly and even answer Bighead’s “night Jared” in turn before closing the bedroom door behind him and swallowing hard. No matter what Richard said, they were going to have that talk about physical boundaries tomorrow. He took a quick, cold shower, put on some comfortingly soft pyjamas and decided to just get to sleep and put it all out of his mind, if only for a few hours.

*

“You seem happier,” Bighead said, apropos of nothing, a few more beers in and several more rounds of Smash Bros down.

“Yeah, I guess,” Richard said.

“Everything cool? With like Jared and. Everything?”

“Yeah, everything cool,” Richard sighed. “you know, apart from the fact Gilfoyle stole 37 million dollars off me and then set fire to a car and burned up into a crisp and I had to go look at his corpse down the police station.” He suddenly felt weird offloading all this shit on Bighead. “Uh, sorry.”

“36 million,” Bighead said, trying to get his struggling Kirby to land a punch.

“…no, it was 37 million, give or take a little.”

“No, it was 36,” Bighead said. “Nino told me.”

Richard paused the game.

“Hey—”

“Who the fuck is Nino?”

Bighead scrunched his face up. “Maybe I wasn’t supposed to tell you.”

“Bighead, who the fuck is Nino? What are you talking about?”

“He’s been in my Warcraft guild forever,” Bighead said. “you remember Nino. From Malta. We tried his spaghetti recipe once in college. It was good.”

A memory of the two of them cracking up and making a mess of the communal kitchen while getting skyped in instructions by a gamer friend of Bighead in like Italy or something who spoke weirdly flawless English and who’d been appalled by Bighead telling him they mainly lived off hot pockets. “Wait, GoblinDong-Nino?”

“Yeah, GoblinDong. He told us not to call him that anymore. He works for Binance now.”

“He works - he works for BINANCE? The fucking crypto currency exchange?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve been trying to get in touch with those fuckers for months, they won’t talk to me.”

“Um, I guess, but they’ve been cooperating with the FBI, and it turns out one million dollars worth of PiperCoin got exchanged into BitCoin through Binance before Gilfoyle disappeared everything else. So Gilfoyle stole 36 million dollars, not 37. I’m going to unpause.”

Richard grabbed the controller off Bighead. “Bighead, when was this?”

“Uhh, I don’t know.”

“Can we, can we message Gobli– Nino?”

Bighead looked worried. “No! No man, I probably shouldn’t have told you any of this. Seriously Richard, no.”

“Okay, but the next time you raid, could you, could you ask him for me?”

Bighead frowned a little. “Okay. Fine. Now can I unpause?”

Richard handed the controller back. He sat back down and started playing the game, but with less focus, and when Bighead won the battle a few minutes later with a celebratory cheer he barely noticed.


	6. Chapter 6

Jared sang loudly and tunelessly along to Tegan and Sara in his car. _If you’re worried that I might have changed, left behind all of my foolish ways, you best be looking for somebody else, without a foolish heart, a foolish heart._ This was going to be a good day. He’d asked to leave work a little early, and he’d been by the library to pick up a hold and by the bakery for a box of four cupcakes. He’d gotten Richard’s favourites and one of his own, too. The court date of The State of California And Plaintiffs vs Pied Piper Inc. was just two days away now and while Richard seemed kind of agitated whenever it came up Jared was optimistic.

How anyone could find Richard guilty of anything at all was beyond him. He also hoped Dinesh would be there and that they’d be able to patch things up. He was a good friend, and they had so much history - what a sad thing to lose. No, Jared was confident that Richard would come out of this just fine, there might be some financial consequences but they were going to get through it together, and then Richard’s brilliant mind would be able to come up with another idea and another way for them to work together. He parked and got his things out, humming as he walked up the stairs to his condo. Entering the corridor leading to his door he saw Richard, with a ratty red bag slung over his back, hood up, wearing a pair of sunglasses.

“Hello, Richard,” he said.

“Ummmmmm, hi, Jared! You’re uh, home early!”

“Were you going somewhere?”

Richard grinned weirdly. “Uhh, no. Noo. I was just. Taking some trash out.”

“In that bag?”

“Um. Laundry. I mean. I’m doing laundry.”

There was an awkward silence. “Richard, are you telling the truth right now?”

“Umm uh uh I’m uh.”

Jared felt a prickling behind his eyes and took a deep breath to steady himself. “Where were you going, Richard?”

“Okay let’s uh, let’s go inside,” Richard said, retreating into the condo, Jared following.

“Were you going to leave me?” Jared asked, his voice pitching high.

“Uhh I, listen. Jared. I have a thing I need to go do and I didn’t want to involve you.”

Jared felt his nose start running and dragged a hand across his face. “I– after all I– you were just going to–”

“No, okay? No! I left a note,” Richard said in a panicked voice, grabbing a piece of paper off a shelf in the hallway and thrusting it at Jared.

“’Dear Jared, I have to leave,’” Jared read out in a wavery voice. “’hopefully all will be clear soon. Thank you for everything. Richard.’ That’s it?”

“Well it’s–”

“Thanks for everything? That’s it?”

“Okay I get that you’re angry–”

“I’ve been with you every step of the way for the past five years of my life and I get two lines?”

“Gilfoyle’s alive! Okay? He’s alive. He’s alive and I need to find him and I’m going to need to leave the state and I’m not supposed to and if you come with me you’d be abetting a criminal and I just don’t want you to get into any fucking trouble on account of me! Like you think I don’t know what you’ve done for me or how many times you’ve bailed me out? You think I don’t appreciate that? I do appreciate that, it’s more than I deserve, and the reason I didn’t tell you about any of this is I want you out of it in case it gets ugly. But I’m not - I’m not going to fucking court, and I’m not going to jail all on account of a stupid god damn PowerPoint!”

There was a long silence, only punctuated by Jared’s ragged breaths.

“Gilfoyle’s dead,” Jared finally said. “we saw his body.”

“We saw a body. And it was fucking gross. But it wasn’t him.”

“How do you know that?”

“Okay,” Richard said, wrenched off the bag, the glasses and his jacket, and went to sit down on the sofa. Jared followed and sat down a little primly, putting space between himself and Richard.

And Richard talked. He talked about how Bighead had let slip the fact Gilfoyle had moved less money than they’d assumed. He talked about how there was a million dollars worth of PiperCoin he’d had no idea who moved. He told him how when he’d gone by Bighead’s house the other night (Jared had been so proud of Richard, going outside to socialise) he’d listened in on Bighead’s source, who said PiperCoin funds had turned up on the Binance currency exchange more than a week before Gilfoyle’s disappearance, and some unknown actor had exchanged it for BitCoin over multiple transactions over several days. Richard had double checked and triple checked and none of the numbers added up, in the given timeframe there was no record of any transactions of that magnitude, not to mention how he’d usually checked the funds almost every day and had a pretty good idea of the numbers. The source also claimed not one single PiperCoin had been exchanged since Gilfoyle’s disappearance.

“Well, doesn’t that indicate that he’s dead?” Jared asked, confused.

“No it doesn’t. Not while all those BitCoins are out there. What the fuck happened to them? Gilfoyle locking away all our funds as a final fuck you would be weird enough, but secretly exchanging a million dollars of them into a different currency and THEN doing it? It makes no sense.”

“Well, can they be traced?”

“No, that’s kind of the whole point of BitCoin. It’s why paedophiles and drug addicts like them so much.”

“So how do you think you’re going to find Gilfoyle, since the FBI couldn’t?”

Richard waved his hands around. “I know him! We were roommates for years!”

“What’s his first name?”

“It’s uh, well obviously it’s, uh, I know this one.” Richard made a face. “It’s… it’s Bertram.”

“Oh, Richard.”

“What? I knew!”

“What’s his mother’s name?”

“…mrs…. Gilfoyle.”

“What kind of transport were you planning on using?”

Richard smiled weirdly again. Jared sighed, shook his head.

“You know what? Fine, Richard. If this is what you want, go ahead. It’s your life and it’s none of my business. I hope you find him.”

Jared stood up, and walked into the bedroom, closed the door behind him. He laid down on the bed and buried his face in the pillow. He heard the front door slam and that’s when he started sobbing. He tried to remind himself it was alright to feel pain and to work through it, and that time would heal all wounds and down the line this pain too would become a dull, small throb he wouldn’t even notice unless he specifically thought about it. He told himself he wouldn’t have changed anything about the last five years, wouldn’t have wanted to not know Richard even if it all ended in a sad, stupid way. Then the bedroom door opened behind him and he looked over his shoulder. “Richard?”

“Um, uh, I, uh.”

“I thought you left.”

“I just went to the garbage room downstairs,” Richard said, and tossed a bunch of rolled up pieces of paper on the bed. Jared sat up, wiped his face. His therapist had indicated Richard might not be quite as great as Jared would have it, which he’d bristled at, and he wondered if he should tell her he’d literally thrown garbage at him while he was crying. Richard climbed up on the bed and sat next to him. “Look at them. That should… like. Explain.”

Jared frowned and opened one of the balled up pieces of paper. “Richard is that–”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

“Is it a cat?”

Jared squinted at the weird ball pen drawing and Richard leaned in to take a look at it.

“It’s uh, it’s a weasel actually,” Richard grabbed it off him. “I didn’t mean that. Look at another one.”

Jared opened another one, rolled up hard, and it just said

_Dear Jared. You mean the world to me_

“Um here, here,” Richard said, handing over another crumpled piece of paper. “look at this one. It’s more than two lines.”

_Dear Jared. I am so fucking scared right now. I’m scared of jail and I’m scared of bankruptcy and more than anything I’m scared that I’ll never see you again. I love you and I should have told you more and I shouldn’t have been such a pussy and kissed you more. And you know. Other stuff. You’re probably good at that because you’re literally good at everything. But I’m an idiot and I’m scared and now I’ll never know what it’s like to be with you. I don’t know why I’m writing this because I’m also too much of a pussy to ever show you. But it’s true anyway. The only good thing I’m ever going to do for you is leave you alone and try to fix this BS on my own. If it works out I’m coming back for you and if you_

“I tried to write that note for like an hour,” Richard said, looking dead ahead, pulling at the strings on his hoodie. “I missed my bus.”

“And you drew a weasel,” Jared said. Richard huffed a laugh.

“Yeah, ha, yeah. Because I am one.”

“Weasels are very destructive. They’re a hazard to nests and hatchlings,” Jared said and Richard cringed. “but I can’t help but like them anyway. They’re cute.”

Richard looked up at him through his eyelashes, biting his lip. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something but then he clearly changed his mind and cupped Jared’s cheek with his left hand instead. Jared gently grabbed it and pressed a kiss to the inside of Richard’s wrist.

“Oh,” Richard said and leaned in and kissed Jared, and it was soft and tender and apologetic almost. When they pulled apart he smiled a secret little smile that effectively wiped away any residual anger Jared had been feeling, Jared just helplessly smiled back and then leant in and kissed him again, and Richard parted his lips for him and moaned softly when Jared’s tongue found its way inside.

*

Jared laid with his head on Richard’s chest, his feet sticking out over the edge of the bed. He could hear his heartbeat. When he ran his hand over Richard’s body he could feel the bumps of ribs and bristle of little hairs. What a thing, to know what Richard’s heartbeat sounded like and to know how it felt to touch his naked body. What he tasted like and how he looked when he came. Or even better, how he looked like when he’d worked Jared’s dick with his hand - that look of sweet, stubborn determination Jared had always found unbearably sexy even in a work context when negotiating with clients, but like this, focussed just on him, just for him– Jared’s arms goosebumped.

“Gosh, you’re beautiful,” he said.

Richard laughed.

“Are you still leaving?” Jared asked.

Richard sighed deeply then, and Jared’s head sank and rose with his chest. “Fuck. Ugh. I guess not. You’re right, I’m fucking hopeless. I probably wouldn’t even make it to Nevada before the cops got me. I probably wouldn’t even make it to Oakland.”

“I could help you,” Jared offered. “if you’re really sure you can find him.”

“What?”

“My car wouldn’t do. I’ll buy something, used, cash. A burner car. We’re going to need new phones. Maybe a gun.”

“Um, no, no, no Jared, no guns.”

“Are you sure? Because I know someone who–”

“No, no. No. But yes to the other stuff, the car and the - yes. Really? You’d really-“

"One condition. I get to come with you.”

“Yes,” Richard said, and then again, whispered into Jared’s hair - “yes.”


	7. Chapter 7

“Wake up. Wake up, sweetheart.”

“Uughhghu.”

“Wake up, Richard.”

Richard blinked against the pitch black of Jared’s bedroom and tried to focus. “Um huh? What?”

“Trial starts today. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it now.”

“Uhhhh. Oh. Okay.” The adrenaline that shot through Richard’s veins jolted his brain awake, even if his body didn’t quite follow. He got out of bed and yawned big. “Time’s it?”

“Half past four.”

“Okay.”

They dressed in silence, then had coffee in silence. Richard applied black tape to Jared’s face in wonky, vertical little shapes, and then Jared did the same to him. Richard explained it would throw off facial recognition tech, and Jared thought it sounded a little far-fetched but also thought it made Richard look like a dangerous spy from the future and didn’t protest. They grabbed their meagre bags and headed out. Jared locked the door and looked at it a little wistfully.

“You okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Jared said. “it’s just, this apartment is really the first place I’ve ever been able to call home. I hope I’ll be able to return to it one day.”

“Uhh, uh. I uh. You will.”

“We will,” Jared said, firmly. “come on, let’s go.”

They walked through the lonely night for about five blocks, until they reached the point where Jared had arranged for the car he’d bought off somebody on Craigslist to be parked.

“You should probably get some sleep,” Jared said. “I’ll take the first driving shift. I’ll wake you up in two hours and we’ll trade.”

*

Richard had given it a lot of thought and he wanted to look for Gilfoyle in Seattle, where he’d worked a few years, and Vancouver, and after that go onto other large Canadian cities.

“What makes you so sure he’s in Canada?” Jared asked.

“I’m not sure, but if I were him, I’d probably want to be outside US jurisdiction. Canada is the easiest choice. Besides, he’s from there, he knows it. I wouldn’t want to try and orientate myself somewhere new if I was on the run. And I’m positive he’s in a big city, not somewhere smaller where strangers might actually give a fuck.”

“He could be in a basement in San Francisco somewhere. We don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I know,” Richard admitted. “but I think this makes the most sense.”

They decided not to take the coastal route and do as many desert roads as possible. Jared was pretty confident their escape wouldn’t attract mainstream news (which had mainly treated the PiperCoin scandal as a curiosity only worth the briefest of mentions), and the admittedly very active and conspiracy theory-filled PiperCoin subreddit was for crypto enthusiasts only, but Richard seemed to think there’d be old West WANTED posters with their pictures on them hanging in every 7/11. He’d muttered something about growing a beard again.

*

When night fell Seattle was still hours away. Richard was driving, and it’d been more than an hour since the last time they’d shared the road with another vehicle. Suddenly, he pulled over. “Break time.”

“Richard, no, it’s so late, there should be a motel just a few more miles down the road. I can take over if you’re tired.”

“No come on, come out,” Richard said, exiting the car. Jared sighed, unfastened his seatbelt and followed. Richard climbed onto the car, lying down on the hood. Jared grinned.

“What on earth are you doing?”

“Come up here,” Richard said, patting the space next to him. Jared shook his head but did as asked, it felt awkward and the windshield wipers cut into his back.

“Look at that night sky,” Richard said, pointing. “look how clear that is when you get away from the pollution in the valley. Isn’t it amazing?”

“It’s almost overwhelming,” Jared said, looking up at the vastness of the sky above and the millions of stars.

“I was big into astronomy when I was younger,” Richard said. “I still get the telescope out every now and again. I used to read the stories, too. Like, at first I thought it was dumb and kind of too close to astrology, I mean it’s just pareidolia isn’t it, people try to make the world fit known patterns and then make up stories around them, but uh, some of them are really pretty.”

“What stories?” Jared asked.

“You know, the old Greek myth stuff. Look, there’s Cygnus, the Swan. See? That really bright one is the tip of the beak, then the one to the side is the eye, and then you can trace the line of the body to the tail, and those two stars represent the tips of the wings.” Richard pointed and gesticulated, and Jared tried to follow.

“That’s a big swan.”

“Yeah. The story goes these two guys, Cygnus and his best friend Phaeton, they were in like a continual game of one upmanship. One day they challenged each other to a race across the sky, so they’d have to race their chariots around the sun and whoever returned to earth first would be the winner. But they cut it too close to the sun and their chariots burned up, and they both fell to earth. When Cygnus came to he looked all over for Phaeton, and finally he found his body at the bottom of the river, trapped in the branches of a tree. He dove and dove into the river to try and pull him out so he could give him a proper burial, but the water was too deep and the branches were too strong. So he wept by the river and begged Zeus for help. Zeus told Cygnus he could turn him into a swan, which would let him dive deep enough to free his friend’s body, but if he did he would have to forfeit his eternal spirit and live out the rest of his life as a swan. Cygnus agreed right away, and he got turned into a swan and managed to retrieve Phaeton’s body, and Phaeton got a real burial and his spirit could enter the afterworld. And the gods were so moved by Cygnus’ sacrifice Zeus put the image of a swan into the night sky.”

“Oh gosh, that’s beautiful,” Jared said. “he loved him so much we’re still talking about it thousands of years later.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Richard said and turned his head to smile at Jared. Jared leant in and kissed him and Richard responded with a happy noise and night air-chilled fingers at the back of Jared’s neck. Then Jared pulled away, and slid off the hood of the car.

“Uh, guess we should get going,” Richard said.

“No, you lie there,” Jared said, standing in front of the car, holding Richard down with both hands on his narrow hips, then fanning them inwards to to unbutton Richard’s jeans and pull them down over his hips. “I’m going to really make you see stars.”

Richard laughed. “What a fucking line,” he said, shaking his head, and then he whimpered as Jared kissed his way down his stomach.

* * *

Seattle was a bust. They split up during the day, asking around in the kinds of places Gilfoyle would like (but avoiding the kinds of places who would know Richard and Jared by sight) and going out to the kind of nights he liked and enduring terrible, terrible music. Jared also posed as a buxom goth woman on Tinder and scanned the little avatars looking for a familiar face, blithely swiping away dick pics, poetry and weird negs. Richard was growing his beard out and as usual it came in pretty quickly but at least he was taking care of it this time and keeping it neat.

“I can’t take this anymore,” Richard said, his head ringing after a night at a gig with an Australian noise band, blissfully back at the quiet AirBnB with Jared. “I’m so fucking stupid, how did I ever think this was going to work? It’s like looking for a specific piece of shit at a fertilizer convention.”

“Well, let’s not give up just yet,” Jared said. “we should at least try Vancouver.”

“We’re not going to find him. What the fuck do we do then?”

“First we try Vancouver,” Jared repeated. “then we worry about that.”

* * *

Vancouver was cold and windy and Jared had stopped by a Goodwill to get them some more suitable attire, a warm jacket for Richard and a pea coat for himself which reminded him of his university days. They’d been there for a few days and hadn’t had any more luck than they had in Seattle so far, but Jared felt happier. He liked Vancouver. He’d never been to Canada before. It felt crisp and gentle and clean. He’d insisted on taking a walk together and Richard, a little reticent, had agreed if they could go somewhere there weren’t a lot of people, so they’d found a park and were currently sitting on a steel bench, Jared’s hands warmed by the takeaway tea he’d bought by the entrance.

“So I got a bunch of flyers and uh… zines from that metal shop, so I thought we’d just maybe start going to some shows or something. So this Tuesday, there’s some black metal… what?”

Jared grinned. “Nothing. Just, winter clothes really suit you. You look so handsome.”

Richard smiled shyly and looked down at his feet. “Yeah, well, no need for a big coat in the valley most of the time. Um… you look, really good too. Like something out of a catalogue.”

Jared grinned. “Kiss me?”

Richard shook his head a little, then looked around - there weren’t a lot of people in the park, it wasn’t even noon yet - and leant in and kissed Jared. Jared’s fingers caught at his scarf and Richard could feel the outline of Jared’s smile against his mouth and all thoughts of finding Gilfoyle disappeared before he heard a voice in a harrowingly familiar monotone saying “holy shit.”

Richard pulled away quickly and looked around, it took a moment, but the guy in the red parka gawking at them was - Gilfoyle. Gilfoyle without a beard, an incredibly unflattering, bleached blonde short center parting and green contact lenses, but Gilfoyle.

“Motherfucker,” Richard said.

“Yeah, what the fuck do you think you’re looking at,” Jared said, suddenly aggressive.

“What?– Jared, it’s him, he’s right there. It’s Gilfoyle.”

Jared stared vacantly at Gilfoyle then realisation dawned on his face. “Gilfoyle? You look… so different.”

“You’d think I was trying to go around undetected or something,” Gilfoyle said.

“Yeah, well, I found you, huh.”

“Congratulations, Dick. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for weeks.” He looked around. “Let’s go back to my place.”


	8. Chapter 8

Gilfoyle led them up the stairs of a grey-looking apartment block and locked them into a small one bedroom apartment, sparsely furnished, no decorations, a scary-looking rig with four separate screens dominating the living room. He shrugged his parka off and flung himself down on a chair, then he steepled his fingers together and looked at them, his eyes oddly beady without the magnifying effect of his glasses.

“I know about the nuptials,” he said. “cute. I thought it was to protect Dick here from your testimony. But you’re for real?”

“Listen here, you piece of shit,” Richard said, agitated. “you don’t ask the questions, I do. What the fuck have you done? Why did you steal every last cent of our funds?”

“I didn’t steal it. I’m safekeeping it.”

“What?”

There was a long pause. “We got hacked.”

“We got– oh you mean, someone got through your security? Is that what you mean?”

“Yes,” Gilfoyle said a little tiredly. “someone got through my security. And they planted a program which made it look like the number hadn’t changed, or rather fluctuated at a normal pace, even while they were transferring coins to another account. About a million dollars worth of them, before I pulled the plug.”

Richard and Jared exchanged a look. “How did you spot it?” Jared asked. He’d sat down on Gilfoyle’s grey, narrow sofa. Richard was still standing accusingly, hands on hips.

“Monica did, actually.”

* * *

_Gilfoyle looked over at Monica, drinking coffee and looking a little zoned out in front of her computer. They were the last ones left in the Pied Piper offices. That happened pretty often. He didn’t mind that at all. Neither did he mind that she’d started adapting to the fact they didn’t have a dress code, more and more frequently exchanging her chic blouses and pencil skirts for the athleisurewear and hoodies standard in the startup world. Her hair, uncurled, cascaded from a sloppy ponytail and whatever makeup she’d put on at the beginning of the day was long gone, unrefreshed. He caught himself smiling and quickly corrected it. It really was just more proof that big coorporations worked to strip humanity of individualism and choice. He’d known Monica for years and it was really just recently he’d realised she had a dry sense of humour and a dark streak, and everything else he could appreciate in a person._

_She got up, stretched and came over. “I don’t know why I’m still here. I’ve been watching a movie on Netflix for the past hour. Why am I doing that here? At least at home there’s wine.”_

_“Good to know you’re earning your salary.”_

_She leant down and looked over his shoulder at the small window showing the PiperCoin funds in realtime. “Did you change the font?”_

_“What?”_

_She pointed at the numbers. “They look more narrow. Did you change it?”_

_“Yes,” he said. “I’m above all concerned with the aesthetic of our value, which is why I changed the font to be a tiny little bit more–” he looked closely. “shit. That does look different. Maybe it’s my resolution?” He quickly brought up the screen settings. Nothing looked out of the ordinary._

_“You okay?”_

_“I’m fine. Go on home.”_

_“You sure?”_

_“I’m sure, yes. Good night, Monica.”_

_“Night, Gilfoyle. See you in the morning.”_

* * *

Gilfoyle sighed. “So I stayed up most of the night trying to figure out what had happened. I went into the code and saw lines I didn’t write. It was… done in my style though. But I remember what I wrote and didn’t. But at a glance…”

“You missed it,” Richard said.

Gilfoyle exhaled through his nose. “Anyway, over the next couple of days I traced it all through a fuckload of vpns to India. So I left them a message and put everything else in a cold wallet until I’d fixed it all.”

“Dinesh thought the message was for him,” Jared said.

“I know. I’ve seen his interviews. Did he really get to it?”

“Lauren did,” Richard said.

“Stallion,” Gilfoyle said approvingly. “I knew it.”

Richard pinched the root of his nose and closed his eyes. “Gilfoyle. We had a hundred engineers, a legal team and some of the biggest investors in the valley on our side. Why in the fucking name of all that’s holy didn’t you just tell us?”

“It was a personal insult,” Gilfoyle said. “I wanted to take them down myself. They penetrated my systems, Richard. They wrote in my style. They used a font so minutely different I didn’t even catch it, they could have used the same one but they chose not to. That was just to shit on me. It was fucking personal.”

“So because you decided to get into some black hat vendetta, you LEFT US ALL IN THE SHIT? I’M A FUCKING FUGITIVE!”

Gilfoyle cleared his throat. “It wasn’t supposed to take this long.”

“IT’S BEEN FOUR MONTHS!”

“These guys are really good.”

“I have a question,” Jared piped up, raising his hand. “the ah, the dead body? Did.. did you have anything to do with that?”

Gilfoyle looked sheepish. “I probably fucked up there. I didn’t have anything to do with it, probably a mob hit, but someone posted a photo of the car on twitter while it was still burning and the logo from the rental company was on it and the model was visible. I hacked their system and put in my name and photo ID as the renter. Figured that would throw people off my trail. Just a little improvisation on my part.”

Jared mouth fell open. “You… you tampered with a crime scene… as improvisation??”

“In my defense, I’d been awake for about 26 hours at that point,” Gilfoyle said. Jared looked horrified.

“Okay, okay, okay.” Richard flopped down on the sofa next to Jared, suddenly exhausted. “Okay, we contact the police, and we explain everything, and the 36 million that are left can go to the owners, and we’ll fucking deal, at least it’ll be less of a shitshow than it is right now.”

“No,” Gilfoyle said.

“Fuck you, no! What do you mean, no??”

“I infiltrated their group. I’m so fucking close to getting that money back. I’ve been working on it night and day for months. Richard, this is my reputation and my honour at stake.”

“Your— your fucking honour? Mister Left Hand Path?”

“I can get them. I know it.”

Jared moved his palms downwards in a “calm down”-motion. “Gilfoyle, now, nobody doubts your abilities, but seeing as how it’s taken this long, maybe it’s time to let the authorities take over?”

“I gained access to their Discord and I’m pretty fucking sure everything I need is in there. The problem is… it’s all in Urdu. And coded Urdu, at that. The eagle has left the nest kind of shit. It’s so… frustrating.”

There was a long silence. Jared let his eyes roam the small apartment and noticed a copy of Complete Urdu: Beginner to intermediate on an otherwise sparse wall shelf.

“We do know somebody who’s fluent in Urdu,” Jared said gently.

“Think he’ll help?” Gilfoyle said, studying his fingernails.

“I think it’s worth asking,” Jared said.

* * *

“The sofa pulls out into a bed,” Gilfoyle said, demonstrating. It’d been a long day catching each other up, Gilfoyle showing Richard and Jared the work he’d done over the past months. Richard had tried to hide how impressed he was, not very successfully, and Jared had tried to get his head around it all as best as he could. But now it was getting late and they’d agreed to start driving first thing, so it was probably for the best to get some sleep. “I have uh, I have this,” he said, grabbing a ratty blanket and throwing it on the bed. “and uh… a cushion.”

“Any sheets?”

“Only one and I’m using it,” Gilfoyle said. Jared made a grimace.

“We’ll make do.”

“Okay. See you in the morning.”

Gilfoyle closed the door to the small bedroom behind him and Jared got comfortable, or tried to. He was too long for the sleeping space so he tried bending his knees a little to fit. The bit that pulled out was a lot softer than the frame bit underneath, so the bed under his back was a lot harder than what was under his legs, and there was an uncomfortable edge at the small of his back. The cushion was disconcertingly flat and barely big enough to support one of their heads. Jared wondered if it would be kinder to give it to Richard or to sacrifice himself and use it so Richard wouldn’t try to. He held it over his head, studying it, and shuddered a little. He missed his kingsize and his clean, high threadcount bedding. Then the door to the bathroom opened and Richard came out, smiling, hands behind him.

“Found something,” he whispered.

“Hm?” Jared smiled back, dropping the cushion on the floor and hoping Richard wouldn’t notice. Richard climbed in, planted his elbows on both sides of him and leant down for a kiss. Jared’s hands found their way to Richard’s waist. He felt Richard drop something on his chest and pulled away to look at it. He picked it up and looked at Richard a little reproachingly.

“‘Satan’s Spit Lube’? Richard, this is disgusting,” he whispered.

Richard sniggered.

“Says here it’s scented with smoke to evoke the 'fires of hell’.”

Richard collapsed in giggles on Jared’s chest, shoulders heaving.

“Oh, there’s an Etsy URL. Richard, please put this back where you found it.”

“Let’s use it,” Richard said and kissed Jared’s neck.

“Mmm, we can’t. He’ll hear us.”

“We’ll be super, super quiet.”

“This bed is so gross.”

“Let’s really fuck it up.”

Jared laughed.

Richard suddenly got serious. “I hope everything will turn out all right,” he said. “but even in a good scenario it might be a while before we’re together, just the two of us, like this. And I just… there’s like, you know. One thing we haven’t done. And I want to.”

Jared ran a large hand down Richard’s back and grabbed his buttock, squeezed.

“Yeah, uh. That. I want you. I want, I want you to fuck me. Please.” Richard started gently mouthing at the column of Jared’s neck again and his left hand made its way into Jared’s boxers, and all the very, very, very good reasons to not do this right now didn’t seem so good after all.

“You can’t make any noise,” Jared whispered, angling his hips to meet Richard’s touch. “if you do, we have to stop.”

“I won’t make a sound.”

They quickly and quietly undressed and Jared uncapped the lube.

“Oh lord, this stuff really does smell smoky,” he said and Richard loudly snorted. “Shhh.”

“Sorry,” Richard whispered and Jared sighed, put some of it on his hand and started stroking Richard’s cock. Richard’s head fell back.

“At least it works like it’s supposed to,” Jared whispered. “here, raise your hips for me.”

Richard got on his back and grabbed the back of his knees and Jared knelt in front of him. He was still slowly stroking him with one hand, and used the other to gently start circling his butthole. This really wasn’t ideal, Jared thought. It should be somewhere they wouldn’t have to be quiet and above all wouldn’t have to be quick about it. When this was all over and they were back in the condo he’d take his time opening him up with his tongue and teasing it all out for hours, like Richard deserved, and he’d talk him through every step of it and learn all the ways Richard liked to be touched. He’d become fully proficient in Richard’s body. He teased a finger inside and Richard gasped and writhed and he was warm and tight. 

“Are you okay, my love?”

“Yeah. Uh. Shhhh. Don’t talk.” Richard whispered, a little strained.

Jared leant over him then, one finger still buried in him, and kissed him. Richard kissed back a little shakily and Jared whispered, “If you ever feel uncomfortable, you stop me.” Richard nodded, his face so close their noses bumped. Jared lined up another finger, almost questioningly and Richard leaned in and kissed him, quick and close-lipped, a whispered 'yes’ of a kiss. So Jared worked another finger inside and in a while he could comfortably scissor them inside Richard and then he hit a spot which made the back of Richard’s head hit the bed with a thud so loud Jared jumped a little, and Richard was gasping and arching and Jared cursed the darkness that prevented him from seeing how beautiful he must have looked in that moment. He couldn’t resist pushing a little harder and Richard wrapped his forearms over his head, muffling a moan. Jared pulled his fingers out and coated his cock in that incredibly questionable lube, grasped himself in hand and slid the head between Richard’s buttocks. Richard unpeeled his arms from his face and braced himself, and Jared could just about make out the way he looked up at him, and in his head he repeated _I love you I love you I love you_. He slid inside slowly, tried to ignore Richard’s hisses of discomfort and the way his fingers dug into the bed. When he was all the way inside he counted to ten, tried to ignore how good the grip and heat of Richard felt, and was about to pull back out when Richard, panting, hoisted himself up with his arms and pressed a wet, open kiss to his mouth, and another, and another.

“Richard,” Jared whispered, like a prayer.

“Do it, do it.” Richard laid back down on his back and Jared grabbed one of Richard’s legs for support, started thrusting in earnest, slow at first but then building momentum. Richard was good, he barely made a sound, just the odd choked gasp escaped and then he’d slap a hand over his mouth. Jared’s own breathing was heavy and he tried to control it, tried to focus on Richard, but it was getting impossible to ignore how close he was, how delicious Richard felt around him, and then Richard’s arms flew backwards to grab and grasp at the back of the sofa and Jared took it as a cue to grab Richard’s cock and in four, five strokes Richard came with a strangled cry, clenching and writhing. Jared pulled out and took himself in hand, and in moments he too came on Richard’s stomach.

“Why…” Richard whispered. “why didn’t you…”

“Easier cleanup,” Jared said. “don’t move.”

Jared got up and went into the bathroom, returning with a washcloth he used to wipe off Richard with, then himself. He dropped it on the floor and got back into bed, draping the ratty blanket over the both of them. “You okay?” Jared whispered.

“Yeah I uh. Yeah. I feel. Like.” Richard took a deep, deep breath and released it. “Wow. Like my whole body is singing. Or something. Like…” he held out his hand in front of him. “all of it.”

Jared laughed a relieved little laugh, grabbed Richard’s outstretched hand and pulled him close, kissed him so sweet and deep that Richard moaned into his mouth. Then there was a loud crash of something hitting the wall and they jumped apart.

“No round two, you sons of bitches!” Gilfoyle’s voice came loud and clear through the wall.


	9. Chapter 9

They started driving at around seven, as the city was waking up. Gilfoyle said two hour shifts were for manlets and insisted on three hour driving shifts. Three hours and fifteen minutes later Jared had finished the first shift and was passed out in the backseat, curled up on his side with Richard’s jacket under his head and his own jacket inadequately covering him. Gilfoyle was driving now, one hand on the wheel, with Richard in the passenger seat. He’d put his glasses back on and looked a little more like himself. He glanced up at the rear view window.

“How the fuck does a man that tall manage to fit himself into spaces that small. Wait, don’t tell me. Using my lube?”

“Umm,” Richard said, blushing.

“I only kept it because the packaging is amusing. That shit reeks. The whole apartment smelled like bacon. They’re going to have to fumigate it.”

“Yeah, okay,” Richard squirmed.

“I wish we’d had some more time so I could have burned that sofa. Even a land border isn’t really enough to separate me from it. I can never return to Canada knowing it’s there.”

“You made your point, okay,” Richard said, trying to think of something to say that would change the subject. “Uh, didn’t you say you’d been trying to contact me? When was this?”

“When I read you missed your court date. I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t done anything… stupid. Or I should say, stupid even by your standards.”

“You really got in over your head, didn’t you,” Richard said and Gilfoyle didn’t answer. They drove in silence for a while.

“Uh, so like, when we left the valley, we used tape on our faces…”

“To throw off facial recog? Smart.”

“You don’t think I was being too paranoid?”

“No such thing as too paranoid in this day and age. Our smart phones are literally creating profiles on us every time we save a meme, walk down the street or try to get laid.”

Another silence stretched out and Richard looked out the window. Earlier he’d watched the sun rise and the sky had been rosy and beautiful and bright. He could see the ocean from the stretch of road they were on now. He wondered what life would have been like if he’d been an outdoorsy, sporty guy, some dumbass. Probably a lot happier and healthier.

“How is he, anyway?” Gilfoyle asked.

“Uh? Who? Jared? He’s– you know, he’s wonderful. Like this whole thing has been–”

“Richard, shut the fuck up, I don’t give a shit about your relationship, I know you’re both good, I got it in fucking stereoscope last night. How is Dinesh.”

“Dinesh? We haven’t talked in a while. He’s branched into infosec, he gives talks and shit. He’s on TV whenever anyone will have him. He takes like eight selfies with Emily Chang every time he’s on Bloomberg and posts them all to instagram, I can’t believe she hasn’t shut him down yet.”

Gilfoyle scoffed.

“He blocked my number when the shit hit the fan,” Richard sighed. “he got really scared.”

“He ran,” Gilfoyle said.

“You kind of created a huge fucking mess, to be honest,” Richard said.

Another long silence, long enough to make Richard think Gilfoyle wasn’t going to answer at all.

“I’m going to clean it up.”

* * *

“Who is it?” Dinesh’s voice came through the intercom.

“Amazon delivery,” Gilfoyle said in a falsetto which was so weird it made Richard grimace.

“Awesome!” Dinesh said, buzzing them in. They went up to his floor and saw him standing in the hallway, door open, grinning. When he recognised them his smile and his eyebrows dropped and he tried to run back inside, closing the door, but Gilfoyle reacted quickly and ran for it, just barely stopped him closing it.

“Hey Dinesh,” he said. “I need a favour.”

“You can’t have one!” he answered in a panicked voice, struggling to close the door Gilfoyle held open with his shoulder, making Gilfoyle wince. “Go away!”

“Please, Dinesh,” Jared said. “we really need you.”

“Just leave,” he hissed. “I don’t want to do anything illegal! Besides, I have friends over!”

“Lie,” Gilfoyle said, wrenching control of the door and opening it. Richard walked in, Jared followed with a “sorry” in Dinesh’s direction, and finally Gilfoyle walked in and closed the door behind him.

Gilfoyle walked up to Dinesh’s rig, looked at the stuffed Baphomet toy he had on his desk. “I like what you did with this place,” he said.

“That’s private,” Dinesh said, and it wasn’t really clear what he was referring to. Gilfoyle sat down at his computer, closed the game Dinesh had been playing, and closed his browser with 50+ open tabs. “I was going to look at those later,” Dinesh protested.

“So uh,” Richard said. “to get you up to speed…”

“No time,” Gilfoyle said. “short version: bad guys have our money, I’m trying to get it back, I need you to translate for me.” While he was talking he’d booted up several command terminals, installed a local VPN server, and logged into several browser windows.

“Translate?” Dinesh said, confused.

“The people who robbed Pied Piper are a hacker group based in India. They communicate in Urdu and I need you to look at their convos.”

“A– you got hacked? You got hacked, Gilfoyle? Is this what this has all been about?” Dinesh got more and more agitated as he was talking. “Brown people got the better of you so you went fucking underground rather than admit to it??”

“Oh! That was so astute, Dinesh!” Jared said. “You guys understand each other so intimately, it’s just a lovely thing to see.”

Dinesh and Gilfoyle turned at the same time to glare at him.

“Um, Dinesh,” Richard said. “like, we’ll explain later, I promise, but if you could help us with this, it might fix everything.”

Dinesh’s eyes suddenly gleamed with ambition. “Yeah? …okay. I’ll try. But if it doesn’t work, you guys have to leave me alone. I don’t want to get any trouble.”

“Deal,” Gilfoyle said.

Dinesh went off to get a kitchen chair and sat down next to Gilfoyle at the computer. Gilfoyle opened the Discord client and Dinesh scanned the convos.

“A lot of this is nonsense,” he said, frowning.

“They talk in code.”

“Give me that,” Dinesh said, grabbing the mouse off Gilfoyle and scrolling. “it’s not… I don’t think it’s code. I think it’s just a really specific, weird slang. Forum vernacular, basically. Like, everybody refers to other users by puns and jokes about the usernames. A lot of these expressions aren’t real idioms as far as I know, they’re probably in-jokes.”

“What… puns?”

“Like this guy who calls himself Cowboy. Everybody else just refers to him as Milkmaid.”

“Motherfuck,” Gilfoyle said.

“Oh, could this be about Pied Piper? They’re talking about septics.”

“What’s a fucking septic?”

“Septic tank. Yank. American. It’s a direct translation of cockney rhyming slang.” Dinesh shrugged. “You’re not a British colony for decades without getting scarred by it. We still play fucking cricket. I’m good at it, by the way.” Dinesh clicked around. “Okay so they’re talking about some kind of smokescreen program and how it worked pretty well with the Americans? Do you know what he’s talking about?”

“Yes. Who built it?” Gilfoyle asked.

“They call him Batman, but–”

“Oh you’re fucking joking,” Gilfoyle said. “Mr Dracula.”

“Huh?”

“There’s a really active guy with the username Mr Dracula. Could that be Batman?”

“Yeah… yeah, I think so.”

“Motherfucking fucker,” Gilfoyle muttered, got up and dragged his beat up macbook from his bag. He opened it and brought up a spreadsheet of more than fifty users and their passwords. Mr Dracula was one of a dozen or so users Gilfoyle had bolded, a 12 character alphanumerical password next to his username and an email adress. “got you.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ve been keeping tabs on the most active guys and retrieving their logins. He’s one of them.” He looked at Dinesh. “Let’s DP him.”

Dinesh’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yeah. You take the mac.”

“Gilfoyle, if you had all this information on these users, why didn’t you just–” Jared piped up.

“Shut the fuck up, Jared,” Dinesh said, typing with the mac on his knees. Jared’s posture sank.

“If these guys are good, they’ll know when they’re under attack and coordinate,” Richard explained. “if Gilfoyle had started targeting random users they would have mobilized against him and made everything he’d found invalid. Now they know who to go for they might actually stand a chance.”

“There’s a laptop in my bedroom, Richard,” Dinesh said. “if you want to help, get that instead of talking.”

“I’ll get it,” Jared said and walked off.

Richard leant forward and hit Dinesh on the arm. Dinesh flinched, more from surprise than hurt.

“Hey! What the hell?”

“Don’t fucking talk to Jared like that, okay?”

“Okay, okay. Jesus.”

“Can you save the chivalry for later, Dick,” Gilfoyle said, pulling up a phone simulator on the PC. “I’m about to crack his two factor id.”

Dinesh looked at Gilfoyle’s screen with a huge grin as Mr Dracula’s wallet appeared.

“Hmmm,” Gilfoyle said. “there’s a lot of money in here.”

“Well, if they’re as pro as you say they are, Pied Piper is probably not their first hit, right?” Dinesh said. Suddenly, the Discord chat sprang into action and Dinesh said, “oh no.”

“Please tell me they’re discussing the Little Women trailer.” Gilfoyle said.

“They know we’re in. He’s asking for backup. Hurry up, Gilfoyle.”

“Well, here it is,” Jared said, returning with the laptop. Dinesh looked up at him.

“Thanks, Jared. Could you give that to Richard. Please.”

Richard opened it. “What do you need, Gilfoyle?”

“He’s using a Python BitCoin client. Any chance in hell you could rejig your algorithm into speeding up this fucking process.”

“Python? Uh, I think so,” Richard said, started writing.

“Oh, shit,” Gilfoyle said as a window appeared on his screen. “I did not open that. Dinesh, can you please try fucking with them. Cloning the desktop to my mac now.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Dinesh said, breathing and typing quickly as the same screen Gilfoyle was working on appeared in miniature on his mac.

“This is it, these are the funds, these are the dates, it’s fucking all of them,” Gilfoyle said. “I was right. Dinesh, get him off my ass!”

“I’m trying! I’m trying!”

“I think I’m ready,” Richard said. “how do you want me to send it over?”

“I don’t fucking care. Fucking Messenger.”

“No way,” Richard said, affronted.

“I’m obviously joking. Might as well skywrite it.”

Richard and Dinesh sniggered and Jared was lost, but smiled anyway so he could join in.

“I’m putting it on the PP server, it’s- well it’s clearly still up and running, as I’m able to write to it,” Richard said. “dp.exe in K.”

“Thanks,” Gilfoyle said, opening another command window and logging in.

Weird things were starting to happen on screen. Gilfoyle turned to Dinesh, frowning. “What did you do?”

“Uh, I think I just set Batman’s keyboard to Faroese.”

“Nice.”

Gilfoyle input a transfer from the wallet and then he ran Richard’s algorithm.

“It’s working. Holy shit, holy shit, it’s working,” Dinesh said.

“Fuck yeah,” Gilfoyle said.

“What’s happening?” Jared said, unable to keep quiet anymore, watching a number increase at breakneck speed in the wallet window in front of Gilfoyle.

“That, my friend, is what a million dollars in BitCoin looks like when it’s being returned to its rightful owner.” Gilfoyle said. “— fuck me, it’s done already. Everybody out. Out out out!”

Dinesh threw the mac at Gilfoyle and dove underneath his desk to unplug all the leads, and Gilfoyle and Richard typed furiously and then pressed the power buttons until both screens were black. For a moment, the three of them just caught their breaths.

“So let me just get complete clarity here,” Jared said. “that, uh, that worked?”

“Yes, Jared,” Gilfoyle said, removing the battery from his mac. “it worked. We got our money back. The hacker became the hackee. I’m going to add what we retrieved to our remaining funds and take them out of storage, get the website back up, and all the Pied Piper customers will have access to all their coins again.”

Jared yelped a cheer and his arms struck out to embrace Richard, and he leant his head against Richard’s curls. Richard grinned and then turned his head and kissed Jared’s cheek. Dinesh’s eyebrows raised and lowered and he looked quizzically at Gilfoyle.

“Time to celebrate, Chugtai,” Gilfoyle said, and pulled him into a crushing hug.

“Ah, get off me, you fucking homo! Uh, no offense,” he said, eyes darting in Richard and Jared’s direction.

“Not letting you go until you hug me back, motherfucker.”

Dinesh struggled for a bit but Gilfoyle held him in place, then he went quiet and brought both arms up around Gilfoyle. They stayed like that for a few moments and Jared put his hand on his heart, watching them. Gilfoyle let go and Dinesh pulled away quickly.

“I _hate_ you,” Dinesh said.

“Missed you too, buddy,” Gilfoyle said.


	10. Epilogue

The four of them were waiting in a bland lounge in a nondescript government building, all wearing suits. Gilfoyle had dyed his hair back to a dark brown and his face was dark with stubble as he’d started growing his beard back out. He was meticulously tearing a piece of paper to shreds, Richard was pacing, mopping his face with a piece of tissue, and Jared and Dinesh were just sitting quietly. Then the door opened and Pete Monahan and the other lawyers came out, shook hands, and dispersed. Everybody got to their feet.

“Gentlemen,” Monahan said and then his neutral expression gave way to an avuncular smile. “that went well.”

“How well?” Gilfoyle asked.

“The FBI and Washington diplomats have been working all night. Mr Gilfoyle’s stumbled on a group responsible for large scale digital theft on an international basis. Let’s just say a lot of world leaders are a lot happier with the United States government right now than they’ve been in a while. In gratitude for this service, they have quietly agreed to drop all charges of economic fraud and tampering with criminal evidence against mr Gilfoyle.”

“Oh thank fucking fuck,” Gilfoyle said and flopped down into a chair, legs sprawling.

“On the conditions that mr Gilfoyle will relinquish full details of his acts, and that he is willing to act as a consultant in future scenarios of similar nature.”

“Work for the man?” Gilfoyle said.

“Would you rather be in the man’s jail?” Dinesh hissed and Gilfoyle deflated a bit.

“I guess there’s nothing wrong with a little freelancing.”

“So this is, it’s like, it’s over?” Richard said. “All of it?”

“Well, there’s still the matter of the multiple personal lawsuits against Pied Piper. I’d be happy to continue acting as council. And ah, if you two need any assistance in what I assume is your forthcoming divorce, I’ll act pro bono.”

“Um, I don’t think we’re going to get a divorce, actually,” Richard said. “so uh, thanks, but, uh.” Jared beamed at Richard, placed a hand at the small of his back.

“I see,” Monahan said, and nodded. “I’m happy to hear it. If you’ll permit me, I think what you have is real. I thought I had something real once, but it turned to be as fake as her ID.”

“And as for the lawsuits, we’re working on it,” Gilfoyle said. “I’ve already gotten everything back up and running and restored all the funds. Someone out there’s always going to want more but we’ll cross those roads when we get to them.”

“What’s going to happen to Pied Piper?” Dinesh asked.

“I see no reason why we can’t rebuild it and go back to normal. We’ve shown resilience.” Gilfoyle said. “And my security is better than fucking ever.”

“We’re a joke,” Dinesh said. “we’re worse than fucking Thanatos.”

“Well, I don’t know about you gentlemen, but I think this is cause for a little celebration. I’m going to find a nice bar and treat myself to very expensive mineral water,” Monahan said.

Jared and Richard exchanged a look.

“Um mr Monahan, I mean, Pete… no. Ew. That felt weird. Mr Monahan, why don’t you come out with us. To celebrate.”

Monahan tilted his head. “Well, that’s a kind offer, Richard. Let me take you up on it.”

* * *

Jared was enjoying a quiet morning. While their adventure had been pretty exciting it really was nice to be back home. He’d woken up early and let Richard sleep, and now he was treating himself to a favourite herbal tea, long pajama clad legs sprawled out over the sofa, looking at shawls on his phone (Richard’s mother was flying in to meet them the coming weekend and he really wanted to find the perfect gift for her). He glanced up on the wall at the picture Gloria had taken of them in that crappy restaurant, he’d had it printed and framed. He’d already put in his calendar for their anniversary next year that they should go back there, if it hadn’t shut down. Suddenly he could hear Richard’s phone ring and then a muffled conversation and then the door opened and Richard came out, stark naked, with his phone to his ear, running to his mac, abandoned at the kitchen table.

“Are you fucking with me? Are you– Dinesh, I swear, if this is some fucking prank– Yeah ok–”

He booted up and put the phone on speaker to free his hands to type.

_“Haven’t you been reading the PiperCoin Reddit?”_ Dinesh’s metallic voice rang out.

“What, the subreddit that nicknamed me the Gay Goblin? That called me and Jared ‘Bonnie and Clyde if they were both chicks’? No, I haven’t been fucking reading it.”

_“They’re loving this, man! Gilfoyle is like, their hero! He’s king of the redditors right now! Every nerd in the valley and beyond are using their savings to buy PiperCoin!”_

“Holy shit,” Richard said, eyes nearly bugging out of his head as he read PiperCoin’s current value. “this is more than 600% what we were worth at our peak. Is– is this really legit? Has Gilfoyle double checked–”

_“Yes, he’s double checked! It’s real! Almost all the OctoPipers want back in, they’ve been calling me and Gilfoyle since they don’t have your new number. Richard, we need people, we need a CEO, we need our offices up and running again. And we need it now!”_

“Okay, okay, uh, I’m uh, I’m on it.”

_“NOW!”_

“Okay, don’t yell, I’m uh, I’m getting dressed, I’m coming. We both are.”

_“…Richard are you naked right now.”_

“Um, yeah, you kind of, just woke me up?”

_“Okay, I can’t talk to you anymore. See you later.”_

Dinesh hung up and Richard stared at Jared. “Looks like, uh, we’re back in business? We uh, we need to get to work.”

Jared grinned. “Aye aye, Captain!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is inspired by the Quadriga scandal. Google it, it's crazy.
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](http://abstractdave.tumblr.com) too :)


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